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Of Names and placesPages - 1-7

(PAGE 1)

Sometimes, it seems, a term that is applied loosely to indicate a general
area is later restricted to pinpoint a particular spot. This seems
to have happened, for instance, in respect to the words "blue mounds" in
Wisconsin. When white men first ventured into the territory south of
the Wisconsin River, they used the words, apparently, to indicate a string
of mounds that stretch from the Mississippi to Madison's four lakes, since
these mounds appear from a distance to be enveloped in a bluish haze.

"Before us", wrote Mrs. Adele
Gratiot in describing the view from a point near the present
Wisconsin-Illinois line in the 1820's, "stretched a beautiful rolling prairie
extending to the Blue Mounds, a distance of thirty miles."

William Rudolph Smith, who was newly
arrived in the mining country of southwestern Wisconsin in 1837, described
what he saw as he looked south from
Parrish's farm northeast of the present
Platteville. "Here we have a fine view of the blue mounds about
18 miles south of us, " he wrote. "Belmont is situated at the
foot of the eastern mound. The prairie here is rolling, and eastward the
eye cannot reach the extent, but southward the view is bounded by the wooded
hills beyond the blue mounds."

The elevations of land that these two early settlers had in mind when
they spoke of the "Blue Mounds" were not the Blue Mounds of the present day,
near Madison, but the Platte Mounds, three in number, lying between
Platteville and the village of Belmont.

In like manner, the term "new diggings", widely used in early days, has
undergone a change in meaning during the years since the first prospectors
followed the Fever River northward from'the Point" (Galena, Illinois)
near its mouth into the mining country of what was then Michigan
Territory. Nowadays the words New diggings refer to a little village
of perhaps one hundred fifty people, located on a branch of the Fever River
in Lafayette county, not far from the state line. To home folks, the
two words also name the town, three miles wide and nine miles long, in which
the village stands.

But in the 1820's, "the new diggins" was an area without boundary lines,
-- the general area in which the prospectors,

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finding traces of OLD Indian diggings, uncovered NEW ones. When
word of these discoveries go out, men flocked into "the Point" from south
and east and headed for "the new diggins". Thus the two words denoted
an extensive mineral region along the Fever,, not necessarily restricted
to either bank. However, since the first big strikes were made on a
ridge of land running east and west on the east side of the river, this land
came to be known as "the New Diggins Ridge", and the tributary stream
at its base was called "New diggins Branch". Gradually, as the
"new diggins", like the "blue mounds" became limited in extent, the term
came to mean something other that what it meant in the beginning.

By the time that white men were allowed to work the "new" diggings, the
'River of the Mines' had been called Fever for so long that no one
seemed to know for certain where the name "Fever" originated. The lead
diggings in the vicinity had been worked by the Indians long before the first
white man was allowed into the area. In the year 1700, when the Frenchman
LeSueur was sent by his king to explore
the upper Mississippi valley, he discovered the little river which came to
be known as the Fever. "Riviere a la Mine", he called it, according
to his journalist Penicaut, who wrote,

"it comes from the north to its mouth, and from the northeast. Seven
leagues on, at the right, there is a leadmine in a prairie."
(1)

Of the several stories told regarding the place-name "Fever", perhaps
the most plausible is that of Colonel Davenport
who operated a trading post in the vicinity at a very early
day. When members of an Indian war party returned from the east, he
said, presumably sometime late in the eighteenth century, they brought back
with them the dread disease, smallpos. "Macaubee", the Indians called
the disease, which, translated, means "fever", or more literally, "fever
that blisters". The scourge spread through the villages along the river
and along a smaller stream to the south. A great many of the Indians
died; the survivors fled. Years later, according to Davenport, those
who had survived returned to "Cosh-a-neush-Macaubee-Sepo", Little Small
Pox River, and "Moshuck-Macaubee-Sepo", Big Small Pox River.
They gathered up the remains of the smallpox victims and buried them
in a mound near the mouth of the fever.

"From that time", said Davenport, "the Indians called both streams Macaubee;
hence the name Fever, the smaller stream still being called Small Pox."
(2)

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When a resident of Galena in 1829 published a
map showing the mines then operating, he noted and accepted this version
of the origin of the name. But some objected, claiming that the river was
named by French Huguenots who called it 'Riviere au Feve" because
of the quantity of wild 'feve" or 'bean' flowers growing along its banks.
So widespread was the acceptance of this second explanation that a Gazetteer
of Illinois and Missouri, published in 1822, referred to the river as
'Bean (Riviere au Feve, F'r.), a navigable stream in Pike County emptying
into the Mississippi. and the Galena Miners Journal in 1830 recorded

"a Bill Authorizing the laying off of a town on Bean River in the State
of Illinois by Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of
America in Congress assembled".

However, when the first postoffice was established at "the Point'
in 1826, 'Fever River Mines" was the address generally used. The fact
that the word 'fever" suggested an unhealthy climate may have led Galena
residents to prefer or even to insist upon some other name for the river.
Possibly, too, they were irked by the uncomplimentary remarks of some early
day travelers. Beltrami, an Italian
explorer, in 1823 said he considered the name Fever "in perfect conformity
with the effect of the bad air that prevails there",' and
Colonel Thomas McKenney observed
in 1827, 'The river sent forth a most disagreeable odor. It appeared
to be the very hotbed of bilious fever."(4)

At any rate, in Illinois, dissatisfaction with the name led eventually
to its being changed to Galena River, but in Wisconsin it is still known
as the Fever. In the spring of 1824, several white men left the Point, and
following the twists and turns of the river northward, came to the ridge
of land below which New Diggings Branch enters the Fever from the east. Here,
where they discovered indications of old diggings, they began their frantic
search for new ones. In a pocket of land enclosed by ridges and fed by springs,
these first settlers in the Wisconsin lead section built their cluster of
cabins and called their little settlement Natchez. Natchez seems a fitting
name for the first mining camp in the new diggings, since it resembled in
several respects its famous counterpart on the Mississippi, old
Natchez-Under-the-Hill.

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The men who came into the diggings from the south
and east no doubt were familiar with the implications suggested by that name.
They had heard stories of the land pirates who infested the forests bordering
the Natchez Trace, along which traders traveled to and from New Orleans
markets. Some of them perhaps had seen the shabby, straggling village of
Natchez-under-the-Hill. They might even have had first hand experiences with
the carousing, fist-cuffing riff-raff of the river town who fought bloody
battles with the flat-boatmen during those early days. Quite likely the physical
characteristics of their new home, with its bluffs and winding river, reminded
the miners of the lower Natchez; but it seems more probable that the character
of some of the inhabitants of their village had something to do with their
choice of a name. A traveler viewing a mining settlement some years later
might well have been comparing it to either Natchez when he wrote:

"Here was to be found at all hours, music, dancing, singing, drinking
and gambling of every description to an extent only equalled, probably, by
the famed NatchezUnder-the-Hill." (5)

While Natchez flourished at,the mouth of New Diggings Branch,
'Hardscrabble" sprang up on another branch of the Fever to the west.
The "hard scrabble" occurred when two men goudged and bit and kicked and
wrestled for possession of a claim known to contain a rich lead.
Hardscrabble Branch still retains its name, but the
settlement along its banks has become Hazel Green.

Hardscrabble Branch enters the Fever about a mile below the site
of Natchez, at a point where two other streams also flow into the
main stream. The secluded spot where all these waters meet became known as
"Buncombe', sometimes spelled 'Bunkham" on the old maps. The
origin of this name is interesting, for it arose out of American political
life. During the sixteenth congress, a member from the district of North
Carolina which included Buncombe County "arose to address the House, without
any extraordinary powers, in manner or matter, to interest the audience.
Many members left the house. Very naively he told those who remained that
they might go too; he should speak for some time, but he was only talking
for Buncombe.' The expression 'talking for Buncombe" caught the public fancy
and became popular, and the word was widely used. The name of the man who
"talked for Buncombe" on the Fever seems not to have been recorded.

(PAGE 5)

Often a name is self-explanatory, as in the case of Council Hill,
where the Winnebagos were said to have met in council before they rose against
the miners in 1827. From the hill, just over the Illinois line, one can look
far out over the Fever River valley. The rolling prairie extends toward the
east; in the north the Platte mounds float in a blue mist on the horizon;
to the west Sinsinawa Mound is outlined against the sky. This last
named mound, another landmark in the mining country, was called Sin-sin-a-way,
'home of the eagle", by the Indians. Its present day inhabitants, the Dominican
Sisters of the Order of the Most- Holy Rosary, think and speak of it as the
"Hill of Destiny", the birthplace of their Order and a lasting monument to
the Order's illustrious founder, Father
Mazzuchelli. Other place names in the Fever River area suggest
the nature of the land to which early settlers were attracted. White Oak
Springs and Elk Grove, for example, need no explanation.
'Cottonwood Hill" was changed to Benton when that village was platted
during the 1840's, at a time when Senator Thomas
Hart Benton of Missouri had a devoted following in the mines.
Before the founder of Benton had chosen 'Cottonwood Hill' as
a name for his homesite, the miners had called this stretch of upland
'Swindlers Ridge" when they discovered that certain prospectors on
the ridge were tunneling through into their neighbors' diggings. 'Buzzard's
Roost" was a name applied to another ridge to the north which came later
to be known as Jenkynsville, then Meekers Grove. When the
settlement at this point acquired a postoffice, the place was named in honor
of Moses Meeker, first postmaster
and one of the earliest and most prominent of the early day miners and smelters.
Names of other early settlers were recorded for posterity when mining camps
and settlements were named Gratiots Grove, Shullsburg, Hamilton's Diggings,
Murphysboro, and Dodgeville. One may hazard a guess as to why a camp
was called 'Whig' or 'Democrat", and the story regarding 'Shakerag'
is well known, but what did the miners have in mind when they called their
settlements 'Black Leg", Black Jack", Buriesqueburgh', 'Red Dog", "Nip
and Tuck', 'Pin Hook' and 'Grab'? Since these camps have long since vanished
from the face of the earth, one can only speculate as to the origin of these
names. The village of Etna has been for many years as extinct as the
volcano for which it is thought to have been named, the 'Etna" in Wisconsin
having been a smelling, smoking limekiln. Leadville on the hill above,
with its school, church and graveyards on the "Democrat" road, lived to become
the present village of Leadmine.

For the most part, the names mentioned here are
the place names of the Fever River Valley above the Wisconsin-Illinois border.
The headwaters of this river-with-two-names are the innumerable springs in
Elk Grove township just below 'Belle Monte", Wisconsin's first
capitol site. West of the river, the feeder streams are called Pat's Creek,
Black's Creek, Coon, Bull, Hardscrabble and Meeker's Branches. The
northernmost on the east is Madden's Branch. Those below are
Shullsburg, Ellis, New Diggings and Kelsey Branches, and East Fork. The
distance from the foot of 'Belle Monte" to the mouth of the Fever
would be not more than twenty miles as the crow flies, but would constitute
a day's journey if one were to follow the twists and turns of the meandering
stream from Pat's Creek or Madden's Branch to the 'slough" below Galena
where the river of the mines joins the "Ol' Man". No one 'talks for Buncombe'
in this day and age. It is a fisherman's paradise, a quiet and secluded spot
where huge gray tailing piles along the river banks bespeak a bustling past.
And the 'new diggings" have become 'old diggings" once again as great mills
and machinery have replaced the sucker hole workings, the picks, gads and
windlasses of other days.